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The Fix Picks the Super Bowl

Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers and Pittsburgh’s Troy Polamalu – players so evenly matched you wonder if they could trade positions and do just as well.

By David Roth and Nando Di Fino

Let’s be frank here: it wouldn’t matter if your Fixers were perfect in making our picks this season. There is no way we could convincingly argue for Green Bay or Pittsburgh as sure-fire winners in this Sunday’s Super Bowl. We can hash it out, run statistics up and down the flagpole, even compile volumes of scouting reports on each player — nothing would help make a convincing case. Even the AP voters saw this: Pittsburgh’s Troy Polamalu won the defensive player of the year award on Tuesday, defeating Green Bay’s Clay Matthews by two votes. Had one member changed his vote from Polamalu to Matthews, it would have been a tie. This stuff doesn’t happen by accident, people!

So, instead of your regular preview followed by the two of us making an obscure pop culture reference and providing a link to something good to read, we decided to go back and forth and try to come to some kind of conclusion. You don’t have to come to the same conclusion, but some of the logic might help make an informed decision in picking a favorite before Sunday evening.

David: Any football games this weekend grab your attention? I’m always kind of exhausted at this point of the season, personally.

Nando: I hate the idea of getting worked up for it, but I can’t deny that the more I look at it, the more I love the match-up. The fans are so similar, the teams are old school, they both have bankable defenders with long hair.

David: Yeah, all the Packers need is someone with a Brett Keisel-ian beard. I think A.J. Hawk’s got the machismo to grow one over the next three or four days, too. He just has to want it, you know?

Nando: And after seeing Keisel’s old-school beard, how could you not want it? This is one of those games you want to see on Thanksgiving in black and white. But it’s the Super Bowl.

David: Totally. I think the football gods are trying to send a message by making it really cold in Dallas this week. Leave that roof open, Jerry Jones. This game needs some steaming lineman heads and frozen breath.

Nando: I think the sad part is that – and I’m guilty of it, too – the attention paid to the quarterbacks, no matter what the weather, is totally overshadowing the stories of the lesser-known guys who might make a big impact on the game, like James Starks or Mike Wallace. Any other Super Bowl, and Starks – a rookie who didn’t really break out until the end of the season – is the story.

David: A sixth-round rookie who didn’t even play his senior year and was only recruited by one school! It is telling that the Packers have this huge underdog at running back and the Steelers have a guy who’s generally regarded as one of the fastest dudes ever to be in the league in Wallace, and we’re talking about Ben Roethlisberger’s feelings.

Nando: Well, Starks could rush for 120 yards and two touchdowns and change all of that. I can’t see this game not being close, honestly. That 2.5-point line is right on target.

David: Agreed. The Packers seem like the stronger team to me, but I’m not totally sure I could tell you why. It’s not just that the teams are evenly matched. They’re almost identical.

Nando: Which means we hear a lot about “experience” being the deciding factor when people say they like the Steelers. But you’re not putting any faith in this whole experience thing, right?

David: Not at all. I think that’s an example of people trying to fill column inches the week before the Super Bowl, or find something to argue about on “Around The Horn.”

Nando: Look at the last few Super Bowls. New Orleans and the Giants beat the Colts and the Patriots – teams with tons of postseason experience – and the Cardinals almost beat the Steelers.

David: The Packers have beaten the best teams in the NFC on the road. I don’t think they’re going to get to the Super Bowl and be like, “Wow, what are all these people doing here?” Never mind that they’ll probably have more fans in the stands at this one than at either of their previous playoff wins.

Nando: I think it’s a way to justify a pick that nobody can make a solid argument for on either side. And anyway, it’s going to be like playing inside a glass case in a fancy museum during an after-hours fundraiser, where only rich people look at you and occasionally clap for good things. It’s not exactly a road game.

David: Total dystopian sci-fi future football. Charlton Heston is going to run out on the field at halftime and tell everyone soylent green is people.

Nando: During the ridiculously long halftime show.

David: The Black Eyed Peas are a huge factor in this game.

Nando: Twentysomething weeks of momentum killed by the Black Eyed Peas having to sing one more song.

David: They’re definitely a huge factor in me flipping to the Puppy Bowl for a few minutes, at least.

Nando: I will be in a beer-induced haze. This is the end of the season for us, too. I may believe I’m actually at the concert at that point.

David: So, pick-wise – I’m picking the Packers because I think they’re good and because I think they’ve looked great of late. But if you picked Pittsburgh for the same reasons, I wouldn’t be surprised. Or even able to argue.

Nando: I’m going with Green Bay, too. But I think it’s because Starks is a fun unknown. There’s not a ton of tape on him, the defense may be a little surprised by what he can do. I’m not saying it’ll be the James Starks show, but I think he’s the difference between two otherwise scarily balanced teams.

David: Which is how someone like Starks can be the difference. A viable counterpoint to the passing game is all the Packers need, and Starks appears to be that. And if Green Bay can play with their whole playbook, that offense is so hard to stop. So I’m basically picking Green Bay to win the Super Bowl because he has looked good the last two weeks and I like him. And that is how you finish below .500 on the season, prediction-wise.

Nando: Gut has a factor in making picks, too, though. And he’s the X-factor after carefully weighing everything else.

Comments (5 of 10)

Fifty years of me backing the Pack, it's gonna be a good win for the Packers!!!!!!!!!

8:13 pm February 3, 2011

MG wrote:

JT,

I not sure what you meant.

7:50 pm February 3, 2011

TP wrote:

One day, hopefully, we'll get sports writers who won't reference appearance. ("Gee, his hair is so thick and full.") You have to be a complete wuss to write about that.

7:16 pm February 3, 2011

Biased from 'burgh wrote:

In The Show, also known as the Super Bowl, players who have never been there sometimes play a quarter all nervous and jittery. Most of the Steelers have been there, done that. The Packers are a talented team, but they will be at a disadvantage that has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with being young, ego-driven kids drinking in their own glory and fame all week.

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